Women’s temple covenant: The pledge to obey husbands, softened then removed

Before April 1990

“Obey the law of their husbands”

The published 1984 transcript records the officiator saying: “We will put the sisters under covenant to obey the law of their husbands.” Women then covenanted “that you will each observe and keep the law of your husband, and abide by his counsel in righteousness.” Men at the same altar covenanted to obey the law of God. In the same version Eve says, “Adam, I now covenant to obey your law as you obey our Father.”

Contemporary reporting in April and May 1990 described the removal of “a vow in which women pledged obedience to their husbands.” The 1990 text replaced “the law of your husband” with “the Law of the Lord” and added the conditional hearkening clause.

The earlier wording

The condition matters to the comparison

The published text pairs women’s obedience to the Lord with hearkening to a husband who hearkens to the Father. The men’s corresponding instruction contains no reciprocal obligation to hearken to a wife. The husband condition limits the earlier wording, but does not remove its asymmetry.

The 2019 record

Contemporary reports describe the change

Sandra Tanner’s May 2019 article reproduces the January reporting by Peggy Fletcher Stack and David Noyce that the husband clause had been removed. That report relied on an unnamed attendee. This case links the accessible reproduction rather than presenting it as an official Church transcript.

KUER independently interviewed named participant Sara Vranes about her January 2 temple visit. She described the new language as changing women’s relationship to God in the ceremony. Her account corroborates the experience of a change; it is not a complete script comparison.

Official presentation

The public covenant summary addresses obedience to God

General Handbook section 27.2 presents the law of obedience for members collectively as keeping Heavenly Father’s commandments. It does not reproduce the spoken ceremony.

The Church’s historical explanation distinguishes changes in administration from what it calls consistent central covenants. That classification does not establish that the earlier husband-specific wording was never used.

Finding

What the record establishes

Before April 1990, women in the temple covenanted to obey the law of their husbands, while men covenanted to obey the law of God. The wording was softened in 1990 and, by participant reports, removed in 2019. Women endowed after each revision would not have heard the earlier wording; the published transcripts and contemporary reports preserve it.